The God Who Speaks - May 2006

Dear God-Listener,

As you'll note, I've been a little tardy with an 11-day late newsletter. I've been working through some thoughts that were only half-baked at the beginning of the month. Hopefully they will nearly be edible now and, Lord willing, even nutritious. Please be patient... I will get to some listening prayer by the end. It started in part from an email...

Part 1: A friend in a distant place wrote to share about a Sunday morning service at her church which was a bit traumatizing. She said the the guest preaching had done a lot of yelling (very hard on her sensitive nerves) and that the people were jumping up and down, saying to each other, "Can you feel it? Can you feel the glory? Can you feel the Presence?" Whatever was in the atmosphere was beyond her range of senses. She wondered, "What's wrong with me? Why don't I feel anything?" She was troubled and agitated and considered leaving. But then she found a friend with a newborn baby. She offered to hold it and through this very tangible package of grace, was able to sense the love and comfort of God. She wasn't so sure that God's presence was "in the air," but she knew it was in the baby.

Part 2: This brought to mind a quote from Eugene Peterson in his must-read book, "Christ Plays in 10,000 Places." He says, "The day after [my granddaughter's] birth, I was in the grocery store getting some vegetables and grains for the family. There were several mothers shopping up and down the aisles with young children in tow--many of them snarling and snapping at the over-lively, curiousity-filled, wildly energetic kis. I wanted to grab the mothers, embrace them, tell them, 'Do you realize what you have done? You have given birth to a child, a CHILD--this miracle, this wonder, this glory! You're a Madonna! Why aren't you in awe and on your knees with the magi, with the shepherds?' Luckily, I restrained myself. 'Madonna' probably would not have had the same meaning for them as it had for me. Birth, any birth, is our primary access to the creation work of God. Jesus' virgin birth provides and maintains the focus that God himself is personally present and totally participant in creation, which is good news indeed... The birth of Jesus, kept fresh in our imaginations and prayers in song and story, keeps our feet on solid creation ground and responsive to every nuance of obedience and praise evoked by the life all around us... " (58-59)

Both these stories spoke of glory. Both spoke of babies. I kept thinking and listening.

Part 3: I found these first two stories adjascent in my mind to the recent flury of news items about the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas. The T.V. and local bookstores suddenly filled their slates and shelves with all things "Gnostic." Gnosticism is a type of spirituality that seeks to divorce itself from our humanity. It is ethereal, atmospheric, vague, abstract. Those who actually bother to read the Gnostic Gospels in the Nag Hammadi texts find in them a glory that is something "out there" which only the super-spiritual can access. The Gnostics offer an escapist spirituality sans the inconvenience of real life in sweaty bodies that go to ordinary jobs to pay real bills to change smelly diapers on children who "sleep like babies" (i.e. up every 2 hours through the night). It makes for some entertaining science fiction, but you can't live it day-to-day in the real world.

This is so different from the biblical Gospels which teach "that the Word became flesh" (John 1:14) and that "Christ was born of a woman" (Gal. 4:4), grew up in a small village, swung a hammer, made friends, suffered and died, and was resurrected--not to escape his humanity, but to renew and glorify it. He lived a real life alongside real people, ate real food and had real conversations. He did not swoosh around in spooky gowns. He taught about love and forgiveness and mercy and justice in a world that needs it and to people who require more than cyptic slogans. If there is a glory to be pursued, it is not so much in prophetic conferences, wafting angel feathers, and some occasional gold dust. It is in the eyes of my brothers and sisters, in the cries of the broken and powerless, and in the smell of an addict or a baby that might need changing.

Part 4: And then I met a tired street-pastor. He struggles with bitterness because the local churches and intercessors are looking for "the glory" as they do prayer walks around the perimeter of the city while the addicts he works with are dieing weekly. As they pray for God to do something, he waits for volunteers. As they arrange revival conferences, those in the streets and pubs wait for someone to love them while they use something to numb the pain. As I spent time praying with the intercessors and eating their donuts, I confess to feeling rather Gnostic. We were seeking a glory that didn't involve the mess of dealing with broken people (and by "broken", I don't mean the romantic brokenness that we sing about. I mean real malfunctions in their personalities).

Conclusion: I realized that the anxiety among Christians about Gnosticism, the DaVinci Code, and the Gospel of Judas is rather hypocritical if we don't pause to draw the plank from our own eye. We need to check ourselves for the gnostic virus. We'd do this best by asking God a few questions together:

1. Lord, reveal in me any way that my spirituality is about escaping life rather than engaging with you in the life you've given me.
2. Lord, show me where I have divorced your glory from your call to love.
3. Lord, in whom should I be looking for your glory today?
4. Lord, how can I be a "word made flesh" today?

Thanks for reading and praying and listening... Please consider inviting others to sign up for the newsletter at www.bradjersak.com. By the way, my new book, "Kissing the Leper: Seeing Jesus in the Least of These" should be out by June 1. I'll let you know when it's ready.

Much love,

Brad Jersak